Rugby World Cup

[Dorset]

I will admit it publicly, I love rugby and especially the world cup. It is one of the few sports I can watch and enjoy regardless of who's playing. I am not really bothered about England or Ireland doing well (OK I am a bit bothered and would like one of those teams to win) and obviously don't care about Scotland or Wales. Watching a sport where blokes don't roll about on the floor in agony when an opposing player almost touches them and respect the authority of the officials is great.

Being massively OCD I appreciate the structure of the game, none of this headless chicken stuff we get in football, which I obviously also love but I can't understand the tactics or strategy involved and am totally lost when you experts talk about positioning and stuff - whoosh, right over my head. I know what I like but ask me where a player should be and I will just say on the pitch. Rugby is different, I know where everyone should be, I know what they should be doing and played well it's nice and tidy, like a dinner table with the chairs all set straight, the knives and forks in the right place, the wine bottle in the dead centre of the table - Mrs D likes the chairs at an angle, but I always mover those fuckers back to their rightful place.

I won't be betting on Japan to win, butI know they will put on a great show and their team will play exciting, fast, clever rugby. Hopefully they will mullah Russia today and start the tournament nicely. Tomorrow should provide two cracking games - France v Argentina and New Zealand v South Africa. I will be checking the kick off times 'cos I thought our game in Greece the other night was a normal 8.00 kick off, luckily Mrs D told me it had started and I only missed the first half, sorry, I admit it, I missed 45 minutes, I will go and sit on the naughty step.

We have visitors arriving tonight, luckily they are lady types and they like rugby innit? Plus the weather here is set to be be poxy so it could be rugby and beer for me and vino rosada for the ladies! I might invite ourSpanish neighbours in to watch a game, that would be funny, trying to explain the rules in English is hard enough doing it in my rubbish Spanglish would be fecking impossible..

Anybody know how to record streams off the Interweb thingy? I suppose ITV will have the games on catchup so I'll have to try and avoid the NZ / SA result tomorrow when we are destroying Leicester - I love rugby but not more than watching Spurs of course.

 

[skiathospurs]

I can watch a bit of kick&cuddle when it gets important,but my school trying to force me to play rugger instead of football,really put me against it for life.The head PE teacher controlled the rugby,for a comprehensive school we had a good record,county cup finalists against tarquin and ruperts grammar&public schools,told me if didnt play rugger when he wanted at expense of when we played football sametime,i wasnt allowed to be selected for football,so i told him to fuck off,literally.Anyway i like all sports mostly,grand prix,tennis,olympics,even rugby inspite of how an old teacher made me feel,but think I will only show an interest in the qtr finals onwards,group matches in most sports have one half decent opponent and then the cannon fodder.Quite liked the cricket world cup format which pitted all the big teams against each other from the off.

 

[Don Diaz]

I will admit it publicly, I love rugby and especially the world cup. It is one of the few sports I can watch and enjoy regardless of who's playing. I am not really bothered about England or Ireland doing well (OK I am a bit bothered and would like one of those teams to win) and obviously don't care about Scotland or Wales. Watching a sport where blokes don't roll about on the floor in agony when an opposing player almost touches them and respect the authority of the officials is great.

Brilliant - enough said. I was lucky enough to go to the RWC in Sydney for the weekend for my 40th birthday. Best weekend of my life, after my wedding and births of my three daughters of course (just in case wifey asks). Looking forward to the next month or so.

 

[Dorset]

I can watch a bit of kick&cuddle when it gets important,but my school trying to force me to play rugger instead of football,really put me against it for life.The head PE teacher controlled the rugby,for a comprehensive school we had a good record,county cup finalists against tarquin and ruperts grammar&public schools,told me if didnt play rugger when he wanted at expense of when we played football sametime,i wasnt allowed to be selected for football,so i told him to fuck off,literally.Anyway i like all sports mostly,grand prix,tennis,olympics,even rugby inspite of how an old teacher made me feel,but think I will only show an interest in the qtr finals onwards,group matches in most sports have one half decent opponent and then the cannon fodder.Quite liked the cricket world cup format which pitted all the big teams against each other from the off.

Soccer wasn't allowed at my school - only football, which is what the headmaster called rugby. I loved it and nobody needed to force me to play. I wanted to play cricket but I was crap at that, you need two eyes or something, all I needed for rugby was to be 6 feet and 15 stone at 14 years old and to be a total cunt. Of course I wanted to play proper football, the kicky type, but I was crap at that as well.

I hate motor racing, tennis and golf. Most other sports I will watch happily, even Tyson Fury boxing, fuck me was that a brutal fight the other day? That would have been stopped anywhere apart from America,

 

[Dorset]

Brilliant - enough said. I was lucky enough to go to the RWC in Sydney for the weekend for my 40th birthday. Best weekend of my life, after my wedding and births of my three daughters of course (just in case wifey asks). Looking forward to the next month or so.

Yep, we've chatted about this before innit? I was living in Sydney at the time and watched the game in the Oaks, Neutral Bay - and it was my birthday! I couldn't get tickets for the final, the only game we saw was England v Wales in Brisbane, the crappest game of the entire tournament but the party was brilliant. I looked at the map and thought Brisbane was only up the road - it took us 3 days to drive there.

 

[Don Diaz]

I can watch a bit of kick&cuddle when it gets important,but my school trying to force me to play rugger instead of football,really put me against it for life.The head PE teacher controlled the rugby,for a comprehensive school we had a good record,county cup finalists against tarquin and ruperts grammar&public schools,told me if didnt play rugger when he wanted at expense of when we played football sametime,i wasnt allowed to be selected for football,so i told him to fuck off,literally.Anyway i like all sports mostly,grand prix,tennis,olympics,even rugby inspite of how an old teacher made me feel,but think I will only show an interest in the qtr finals onwards,group matches in most sports have one half decent opponent and then the cannon fodder.Quite liked the cricket world cup format which pitted all the big teams against each other from the off.

Don't know if you remember Mickey Skinner, back in the Rob Andrew days - he was the people's rugby champion. Quote from Wikiwotsit

Skinner is world-renowned for "The Tackle", his hit on Marc Cecillon in England's 1991 Rugby World Cup quarterfinal against France in Paris. The match, which England won 19-10, was one of the most brutal in World Cup history

 

[BrooklynYid]

Looking forward to the Eagles crushing English dreams of a World Cup title on Thursday. I am sure that our superior weight training and mirror-flexing will leave your lads haplessly strewn about the pitch while we saunter effortlessly across the try line. Just hope our boys know you have to touch the ball down for points. Fingers crossed!

 

[Don Diaz]

Good game on TV today. England winning 5-3 early doors, massively intense, big hits going in.

 

[Dorset]

Good game on TV today. England winning 5-3 early doors, massively intense, big hits going in.

What the feck is Farrell made out of? Another massive shoulder smash into his bonce and he just gets up and carries on. It's good to see the refs giving red cards for these dangerous tackles, I like a bit of aggression but it has to be controlled. England's last try reminded me of the 2003 power mauls, probably only effective in a game against a knackered 14 man side but it made me go all nostalgic. Tough game, they always are against the Argies, England can't afford to take their foot off the gas, they won by a load, but it wasn't great. Telly organising is hard this morning, 3 games of rugby so far, but Ill have to abandon the Japan Samoa game in half an hour of course.

 

[Don Diaz]

What the feck is Farrell made out of? Another massive shoulder smash into his bonce and he just gets up and carries on. It's good to see the refs giving red cards for these dangerous tackles, I like a bit of aggression but it has to be controlled. England's last try reminded me of the 2003 power mauls, probably only effective in a game against a knackered 14 man side but it made me go all nostalgic. Tough game, they always are against the Argies, England can't afford to take their foot off the gas, they won by a load, but it wasn't great. Telly organising is hard this morning, 3 games of rugby so far, but Ill have to abandon the Japan Samoa game in half an hour of course.

‘They won by a load, but it wasn’t great’ is spot on. A lot of wasteful kicking and lack of intensity in the second half. We’ll need to up our game in the knockout stages significantly. Would prefer Australia to Wales I think in the quarter final.

 

[Dorset]

Scotland v Japan should be a cracker today. I hope the Jochs get smashed to pieces after all their whingeing about how unfair if would be if the rules that they knew about before the tournament started were applied due to the typhoon. Scotland need to win and if Japan lose by 7 or less they need to have scored 4 tries. I can't see Japan trying to defend for 80 minutes and stop the sweaties getting this 4 tries, that would be silly, they should play their usual fast exciting rugby and let Scotland give away hundreds of penalties.

 

[Dorset]

ooooh, I was right! What a game!

 

[Don Diaz]

Looking forward to Japan vs SA....

 

[Dorset]

Looking forward to Japan vs SA....

I wonder if South Africa are? Before the tournament some people were saying Japan would be lucky to get through to the quarter finals - and they won the group!

 

[Don Diaz]

I’ve just had a little dreamy look at the cost of a weekend in Tokyo over the 2nd November. Flights with one stop from London are £548 and good accommodation for 2 sharing is £350. Eat cheaply for 3 days and it’s almost doable if you can get a ticket. Assuming one or major results for England - Australia and NZ.....

 

[skiathospurs]

 

[Don Diaz]

Massive win great result with a bit of occasional luck. Always good to beat the Aussies, piss taking territory

 

[Dorset]

Massive win great result with a bit of occasional luck. Always good to beat the Aussies, piss taking territory

A nice easy game next weekend and we're in the final (that was a week attempt at sarcasm - how good did NZ look today?)

 

[Don Diaz]

A nice easy game next weekend and we're in the final (that was a week attempt at sarcasm - how good did NZ look today?)

Ireland aren’t the team they were though, Japan beat them. I reckon we’ll give the kiwi’s a game. We’ll probably lose because they are the best team in the world, but I reckon it’s a 65:35 type game. If we can put them under pressure it would be good to see how they perform.

Good luck France tomorrow

 

[Thfcire]

Ireland aren’t the team they were though, Japan beat them. I reckon we’ll give the kiwi’s a game. We’ll probably lose because they are the best team in the world, but I reckon it’s a 65:35 type game. If we can put them under pressure it would be good to see how they perform.

Good luck France tomorrow

Leave it...

 

[Dorset]

Kyle Sinckler's try amused me. The Ozzies were covering all the 'danger men', then a lumbering great prop ambles in for a try, thorough a gap even I could park a car in - I need a very big gap because I am a crap driver.

 

[Don Diaz]

Right, kettle is on, flights for next weekend are reserved, cheap accommodation on Booking.com sorted free cancellation before next Thursday, just need a couple of tickets and it’s 2003 all over again!!

I reckon we’ve got about a 65:35 chance...these are the best two teams in the tournament. As long as we don’t keep kicking the ball away we’ll be fine.... won’t we?

 

[skiathospurs]

Right, kettle is on, flights for next weekend are reserved, cheap accommodation on Booking.com sorted free cancellation before next Thursday, just need a couple of tickets and it’s 2003 all over again!!

I reckon we’ve got about a 65:35 chance...these are the best two teams in the tournament. As long as we don’t keep kicking the ball away we’ll be fine.... won’t we?

Whoooooooa oooooh halfway there...........

 

[Dorset]

Fucking blimey - what a performance from England! Itoje was a fucking monster. The only score New Zealand got was a lucky try from an England line out mistake.

 

[skiathospurs]

amazing performance to a man.wow !!!

 

[skiathospurs]

 

[skiathospurs]

So Mallory`s big wing worked again

 

[skiathospurs]

Fucking blimey - what a performance from England! Itoje was a fucking monster.

Man of the match,but really how did you pick one from that lot?underhill,watson,ford,vunipola magnificent all of them.

 

[Dorset]

Man of the match,but really how did you pick one from that lot?underhill,watson,ford,vunipola magnificent all of them.

I agree, they were all brilliant. Lets' hope our players were watching that to get a clue of how much effort they need to put in tomorrow,

The score could easily have been 26-0, the 2nd disallowed try was a harsh decision I think and their try was just lucky, they were mullahed. I hope the taffs win tomorrow, an England Wales final would be great, if England play half as well as they did today then I don't think Wales or South Africa could get near them.

 

[Don Diaz]

I agree, they were all brilliant. Lets' hope our players were watching that to get a clue of how much effort they need to put in tomorrow,

The score could easily have been 26-0, the 2nd disallowed try was a harsh decision I think and their try was just lucky, they were mullahed. I hope the taffs win tomorrow, an England Wales final would be great, if England play half as well as they did today then I don't think Wales or South Africa could get near them.

Is the right answer. NZ were never in the game, truly astonishing and an outstanding performance from every single player. Itoje man of the match just from Underhill and others. We absolutely swamped them, played with more intensity in every department, they never got a start. I hope we haven’t just played our final, because I’m going to the real one next weekend, if we lose to Wales I’ll commit hari-kari whilst I’m out there.....!!!